Breaking News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/2/2020
  

  From Afar, Congress Moves to Oversee Trump Coronavirus Response

  Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would move to form a special committee to scrutinize the Trump administration’s response, including how more than $2 trillion in federal relief money is being spent.

• 
• SOURCE: Artnet News
  4/2/2020
  

  A 200-Foot Section of the Berlin Wall Has Been Torn Down to Make Way for Condos, Leaving Historians Appalled

  One of the largest remaining stretches of the inner wall was tucked quietly away in a suburb.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/1/2020
  

  The Military Knew Years Ago That a Coronavirus Was Coming

  The Pentagon was well aware of not just the threat of a novel influenza, but even anticipated the consequent scarcity of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds. 

• 
• SOURCE: Freedom Forum
  4/2/2020
  

  "Be Nice" Is Not Needed During Crisis — But A Free Press Is

  “Be nice” — two words not found anywhere among the 45 words of the First Amendment.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  3/30/2020
  

  The Prep-School Nazi

  by Benjamin Wallace

  Before he was Norman Spear, hate group founder and possible Russian asset Rinaldo Nazzaro was just another Jersey boy.

• 
• SOURCE: Daily Beast
  4/2/2020
  

  Army Warned in Early February That Coronavirus Could Kill 150,000 Americans

  While the president was still downplaying the COVID-19 epidemic, an Army briefing shared with The Daily Beast shows the service warning of the scale of death Trump now concedes.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/1/2020
  

  Covid-19 Changed How the World Does Science, Together

  While political leaders have locked their borders, scientists have been shattering theirs, creating a global collaboration unlike any in history.

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  3/31/2020
  

  If Marijuana is Essential During the Coronavirus Shutdown, Why Not Books?

  Why should it be easier to buy marijuana than a good book at a store in Los Angeles during the coronavirus shutdown? 

• 
• SOURCE: Fast Company
  3/24/2020
  

  The Untold Origin Story of the N95 Mask

  The most important design object of our time was more than a century in the making.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/1/2020
  

  We Can Finally See the Real Source of Washington Gridlock

  by Adam Serwer

  Washington gridlock stems from the ideological conviction, held by much of the Republican Party, that the Democratic Party is inherently illegitimate and has no right to govern.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  3/30/2020
  

  Odds of a Contested November Election Are on the Rise

  Now that state-run electoral systems are in chaos in the midst of a pandemic, with no assurances the conditions for normal voting behavior will return by November, the odds of a contested general election (not just by Trump, but by elements of both parties) have gone up.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/30/2020
  

  Penguin Classics and Others Work to Diversify Offerings From the Canon

  Across the industry, publishers are releasing titles by authors who were previously marginalized or entirely lost to history.

• 
• SOURCE: ABC Religion and Ethics
  3/30/2020
  

  Coping With Coronavirus Disappointments: Five Lessons From Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  For a case study in coping with disappointment in the context of isolation and social distancing, we find a surprising source of help in Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  3/31/2020
  

  The Case Against Waging ‘War’ on the Coronavirus

  There is a long history of world leaders framing fights against disease within the context of war.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Post
  3/30/2020
  

  Helen Hunt Brings Trailblazing War Journalist to Life in "World On Fire"

  “I remember reading that she called her paper the next day and held the phone out the window [so they could hear the gunfire and chaos] and said, ‘It’s happening right now!'”

• 
• SOURCE: American Civil War Museum
  3/30/2020
  

  15th Turns 150!

  The presence of new citizens in the form of formerly enslaved people forced Congress to consider what citizenship and voting actually meant. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/28/2020
  

  They Survived the Spanish Flu, the Depression and the Holocaust: They Have Some Advice For You

  Two extraordinary women — one 101, the other 95 — lived through the worst of the 20th century. They have some advice for you.

• 
• SOURCE: Fortune
  3/30/2020
  

  USPS Warns it Might Have to Shutter by June as $2 Trillion Coronavirus Stimulus Package Provides No Funding

  The USPS is the federal government’s most favorably viewed agency, with an approval rating of 90%.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  3/24/2020
  

  In Blackbeard Pirate Ship Case, Supreme Court Scuttles Copyright Claims

  Ruling unanimously, the U.S. Supreme Court said that a videographer who spent two decades documenting the salvaging of Blackbeard's ship cannot sue the state of North Carolina in federal court for using his videos without his permission.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/31/2020
  

  Coronavirus Kills Its First Democracy

  You could say that Hungary was already “immunocompromised.”